Joined: 14 Dec 2005 Posts: 475 Location: North London
Posted: Sat Nov 14, 2009 11:27 am Post subject: But..
We are getting a lot of propaganda about how awful and terrible Afghan police and army are. THis tells us that we in the West cannot allow these corrupt people to rule themselves. That is, we have to stay in Afghanistan indefinitely.
I don't trust Cocburn's explanation. Why did this young recruit join an army that sodomised him? Why didn't he kill members of the Afghan army?
Joined: 30 Jul 2006 Posts: 6060 Location: East London
Posted: Sat Nov 14, 2009 6:22 pm Post subject: Re: But..
insidejob wrote:
We are getting a lot of propaganda about how awful and terrible Afghan police and army are. THis tells us that we in the West cannot allow these corrupt people to rule themselves. That is, we have to stay in Afghanistan indefinitely.
I don't trust Cocburn's explanation. Why did this young recruit join an army that sodomised him? Why didn't he kill members of the Afghan army?
I'm sure the Afghan Quisling army are not just as bad, but a damn sight worse than they are portrayed.
What kind of 'people' would serve a corrupt, brutal, puppet regime, operating under the umbrella of the 'Coalition' (occupying) forces?
The same kind as in Occupied France, Occupied (Empire) India, etc.
The same kind of 'people' as the Kapos in Auschwitz.
The US ('Coalition') occupiers would be well pleased to have an Afghan on Afghan situation, rather than have their own (expendable) forces take casualties - not for any squemishness about loss of GI's, but about public opinion in home country. _________________ 'And he (the devil) said to him: To thee will I give all this power, and the glory of them; for to me they are delivered, and to whom I will, I give them'. Luke IV 5-7.
Joined: 25 Jul 2005 Posts: 18335 Location: St. Pauls, Bristol, England
Posted: Sat Nov 14, 2009 7:22 pm Post subject:
Stealing Money, Selling Heroin and Raping Boys
Meet Our Afghan Ally
By Patrick Cockburn
November 13, 2009 "Counterpunch" -- -- Just when President Barack Obama looked as if he might be railroaded into sending tens of thousands more US troops to Afghanistan the American envoy to Kabul has warned him not to do so. In a leaked cable to Washington sent last week, the US ambassador to Afghanistan, Gen Karl W. Eikenberry, argues that it would be a mistake to send reinforcements until the government of President Hamid Karzai demonstrates that it will act against corruption and mismanagement. General Eikenberry knows what he is talking about because he has long experience of Afghanistan. A recently retired three star general, he was responsible for training the Afghan security forces from 2002 to 2003 and was top US commander in Afghanistan from 2005 to 2007.
There is a dangerous misunderstanding outside Afghanistan about what ‘corruption and mismanagement’ mean in an Afghan context and a potentially lethal underestimation of how these impact on American and British forces. For example, the shadow British Defense Secretary Liam Fox argued that though ‘corruption and establishing good governance’ are not unimportant, ‘we need to recognize that Afghan governance is likely to look very different from governance as we knows it in the West.’
Leaving aside the patronizing tone of the statement, this shows that Mr Fox fundamentally misunderstands what is happening on the ground in Afghanistan. Corruption and mismanagement do not just mean that the police are on the take or that no contract is awarded without a bribe. It is much worse than that. For instance, one reason Afghan villagers prefer to deal with the Taliban rather than the government security forces is that the latter have a habit of seizing their sons at checkpoints and sodomizing them. None of our business, Mr Fox, who may be British Defense Secretary by this time next year, would presumably say. We are not in Afghanistan for the good government of Afghans: ‘Our troops are not fighting and dying in Afghanistan for Karzai’s government nor should they ever be.’ But the fact that male rape is common practice in the Afghan armed forces has, unfortunately, a great deal to do with the fate of British soldiers.
There was a horrified reaction across Britain last week when a 25-year old policeman called Gulbuddin working in a police station in the Nad Ali district of Helmand killed five British soldiers when he opened fire with a machine gun on them. But the reason he did so, according to Christina Lamb in The Sunday Times, citing two Afghans who knew Gulbuddin, was that he had been brutally beaten, sodomised and sexually molested by a senior Afghan officer whom he regarded as being protected by the British.
The slaughter at Nad Ali is a microcosm of what is happening across Afghanistan. It is why Mr Fox is wrong and General Eikenberry is right about the dangers of committing more American or British troops regardless of the way Afghanistan is ruled. Nor are the events which led to the deaths of the young Britoish soldiers out of the ordinary. Western military officials eager to show success in training the Afghan army and police have reportedly suppressed for years accounts from Canadian troops that the newly trained security forces are raping young boys.
Mr Fox’s approach only makes sense if we assume that it does not matter what ordinary Afghans think. This is what the Americans and, to a lesser degree the British, thought in Iraq in 2003. They soon learned different. I remember visiting the town of al-Majar al-Kabir in June 2003, soon after six British military policemen had been shot dead in the local police station. The British army had unwisely sent patrols with dogs through one of the most heavily armed towns in the country, famous for its resistance to Saddam Hussein, as if the British were an all-conquering occupation army.
The Americans and British eventually learned the unnecessarily costly lesson in Iraq that what Iraqis thought and did would wholly determine if foreign forces were going to be shot at or not. Mr Fox claims the US and Briton will not be in Afghanistan in defense of the Afghan government, but if we are not doing that, then we become an occupation force. A growing belief that this is already the case is enabling Taliban fighters, who used to be unpopular even among the Pashtun, to present themselves as battling for Afghan independence.
General Eikenberry expresses frustration over the lack of US money being allocated for spending on development and reconstruction after Afghanistan’s infrastructure has been wrecked by 30 years of war. The ambassador has not even been able to obtain $2.5 billion for non-military spending, this though the cost of the extra 40,000 US troops requested by General Stanley A. McChrystal, the top US and NATO commander in Afghanistan, is put by army planners at $33 billion and by White House officials at about $50 billion over a year.
This is one of the absurdities of the Afghan war. Afghanistan is one of the poorest countries in the world. Some 12 million out of 27 million Afghans live below the poverty line on 45 cents a day, according to the UN. “Afghanistan is facing a food crisis which will turn into a human catastrophe if donors do not act promptly,” said Karim Khalili, the second vice president, often denounced as a warlord, earlier this summer. Yet the lower estimate for each extra 1,000 US troops is $1 billion a year.
An Afghan policeman earns around $120 a month. In return for this he is forced to do a more dangerous job than Afghan soldiers, some 1,500 policemen being killed between 2007 and 2009, three times the number of deaths suffered by the Afghan army. Compare this money and these dangers with that of a US paid consultant earning $250,000 a year -- and with the cost of his guards, accommodation and translator totalling the same amount again – lurking in his villa in Kabul. General Eikenberry is rightly sceptical about the dispatch of reinforcements to prop up a regime which is more of a racket than an administration. The troops may kill more Taliban, but they will also be their recruiting sergeants. As for the Afghan government, its ill-paid forces will not be eager to fight harder if they can get the Americans and the British to do their fighting for them.
Patrick Cockburn is the author of 'The Occupation: War, resistance and daily life in Iraq' and 'Muqtada! Muqtada al-Sadr, the Shia revival and the struggle for Iraq'.
Joined: 25 Jul 2005 Posts: 18335 Location: St. Pauls, Bristol, England
Posted: Mon Dec 28, 2009 12:25 am Post subject:
NATO commanders wore Nazi regalia in Afghanistan
Press TV - November 26, 2009
It has just been discovered that two commanders of the Czech military working under NATO command used Nazi symbols on their helmets during their deployment in Afghanistan.
The story was made public after Czech police serving in Afghanistan reported the case, the Russia Today website reported on Tuesday.
According to the daily Mlada fronta Dnes, the soldiers, identified as Hynek Matonoha and Jan Cermak, wore the symbols of the 9th SS panzer division Hohenstaufen and the SS Dirlewanger brigade respectively, which were probably the most infamous SS combat units of World War II.
Unaware of their sordid actions, Czech Defense Minister Martin Bartak decorated the soldiers for bravery on Friday after their return from Afghanistan.
Later, the minister said that at the time, he had not yet learned about the helmet controversy, which has caused quite a stir among the country’s armed forces.
A specialist in extremism, Michal Mazel, has rejected the excuse given by one of the men, who said that he had unintentionally used the symbols.
"He is an elite troop who graduated from university, he is no teenager. The SS symbols on their helmets show a totally perverse view of the world of the NATO military’s elite troop," Russia Today quoted Mazel as saying.
Anti-violence activists say the case with the soldiers is nothing new for the Czech Republic.
"There were several attacks on Roma and other communities in recent years, and these problems in our army, of course, shocked all Czech people," said Ivona Novomestska, spokesperson for an anti-violence movement.
Petr Prochazka, the commander of the Czech contingent in Afghanistan’s Logar province, had ordered that any photographs showing the controversial helmet covers be burnt.
After the facts came out, the commanders were immediately suspended, and they will be facing disciplinary action for their conduct.
Joined: 30 Jul 2006 Posts: 6060 Location: East London
Posted: Fri Jan 01, 2010 6:32 pm Post subject:
'Onward, Coalition Forces' (to the tune of 'Onward Christian (of Bush, Bliar etc. variety) Soldiers'):
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article24290.htm _________________ 'And he (the devil) said to him: To thee will I give all this power, and the glory of them; for to me they are delivered, and to whom I will, I give them'. Luke IV 5-7.
Last edited by outsider on Mon Jan 04, 2010 9:45 pm; edited 1 time in total
Joined: 25 Jul 2005 Posts: 18335 Location: St. Pauls, Bristol, England
Posted: Mon Jan 04, 2010 7:22 pm Post subject:
Obama and Afghanistan: America’s Drug-Corrupted War
by Prof Peter Dale Scott
Global Research, January 1, 2010
The presidential electoral campaign of Barack Obama in 2008, it was thought, “changed the political debate in a party and a country that desperately needed to take a new direction.”[1] Like most preceding presidential winners dating back at least to John F. Kennedy, what moved voters of all descriptions to back Obama was the hope he offered of significant change. Yet within a year Obama has taken decisive steps, not just to continue America’s engagement in Bush’s Afghan War, but significantly to enlarge it into Pakistan. If this was change of a sort, it was a change that few voters desired.
Those of us convinced that a war machine prevails in Washington were not surprised. The situation was similar to the disappointment experienced with Jimmy Carter: Carter was elected in 1976 with a promise to cut the defense budget. Instead, he initiated both an expansion of the defense budget and also an expansion of U.S. influence into the Indian Ocean.[2]
As I wrote in The Road to 9/11, after Carter’s election
It appeared on the surface that with the blessing of David Rockefeller’s Trilateral Commission, the traditional U.S. search for unilateral domination would be abandoned. But…the 1970s were a period in which a major “intellectual counterrevolution” was mustered, to mobilize conservative opinion with the aid of vast amounts of money…. By the time SALT II was signed in 1979, Carter had consented to significant new weapons programs and arms budget increases (reversing his campaign pledge).[3]
The complex strategy for reversing Carter’s promises was revived for a successful new mobilization in the 1990s during the Clinton presidency, in which a commission headed by Donald Rumsfeld was prominent. In this way the stage was set, even under Clinton, for the neocon triumph in the George W. Bush presidency[4]
The Vietnam War as a Template for Afghanistan
The aim of the war machine has been consistent over the last three decades: to overcome the humiliation of a defeat in Vietnam by doing it again and getting it right. But the principal obstacle to victory in Afghanistan is the same as in Vietnam: the lack of a viable central government to defend. The relevance of the Vietnam analogy was rejected by Obama in his December 1 speech: "Unlike Vietnam,” he said, “we are not facing a broad-based popular insurgency." But the importance of the Vietnam analogy has been well brought out by Thomas H. Johnson, coordinator of anthropological research studies at the Naval Postgraduate School, and his co-author Chris Mason. In their memorable phrase, “the Vietnam War is less a metaphor for the conflict in Afghanistan than it is a template:”............
The aim of the war machine has been consistent over the last three decades: to overcome the humiliation of a defeat in Vietnam by doing it again and getting it right. But the principal obstacle to victory in Afghanistan is the same as in Vietnam: the lack of a viable central government to defend. The relevance of the Vietnam analogy was rejected by Obama in his December 1 speech: "Unlike Vietnam,” he said, “we are not facing a broad-based popular insurgency." But the importance of the Vietnam analogy has been well brought out by Thomas H. Johnson, coordinator of anthropological research studies at the Naval Postgraduate School, and his co-author Chris Mason. In their memorable phrase, “the Vietnam War is less a metaphor for the conflict in Afghanistan than it is a template:”............
Whilst the Vietnam war may have been the template for the war in Afghanistan and Iraq let us not assume that the American defeat in those countries and their eventual pullout will be LIKE in Vietnam.
They may leave undercover overnight whilst something else is happening somewhere else in the planet probably engineered by them which dominates the news like the Haitian 'earthquake'.
If there is one thing the Americans are good at is they learn from the past in managing lies anc covering up what is actually happening on the ground. Until yesterday we were all told the Taliban were only in Helmand, now they are right in the centre...
Joined: 25 Jul 2005 Posts: 18335 Location: St. Pauls, Bristol, England
Posted: Mon Jan 18, 2010 8:19 pm Post subject:
They briefly took over the Presidential Palace, Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Finance and blew the front of the Central Bank off. And all at the ame moment as Karzai's latest stooge ministers were being sworn in.
Guardian: Taliban's Day of Glory - only joking
Yup. Today the people who would almost certainly win a free and fair election in Afghanistan took over several key ministries and the presidential palace at the same moment as the US puppet mafia crook Karzai was announcing his sham cabinet. Here is some pretty dramatic film of what appears to be one of the Taliban car bombs going off. The troops are running away from it beforehand so I imagine they panted a small bomb on it to make it blow up prematurely.
Al Jazeera has obtained an exclusive interview with Sirajuddin Haqqani, a Taliban commander fighting US and Nato forces in Afghanistan.
US commanders have identified the Pakistan-based Haqqani network - widely believed to have ties with Pakistan's spy agency - as one of the biggest threats to US forces in Afghanistan.
The network, which was initially nurtured by the CIA, carries out attacks on foreign forces across the majority of eastern Afghanistan.
The US has put a $5 million bounty on Sirajuddin Haqqani's head. David Chater has the latest from Kabul.
_________________ 'Come and see the violence inherent in the system.
Help, help, I'm being repressed!'
“The more you tighten your grip, the more Star Systems will slip through your fingers.”
Introduction and Editorial note: Gordon Duff, Senior Editor Veterans Today
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has been briefed by the Pakistani Military High Command that they are being overwhelmed by highly trained and extremely well armed militants in the border regions and terrorists operating across the country. We have been told by the highest sources that Blackwater/Xe and other US based mercenary groups have been actively attacking police, military and intelligence organizations in Pakistan as part of operations under employment of the Government of India and their allies in Afghanistan, the drug lords, whose followers make up the key components of the Afghan army.
Investigations referenced in the Pakistan Daily Mail by abrina Elkani and Steve Nelson indicate that, rather than hunt terrorists who have been killing Americans, these groups have actually taken key militant leaders into Afghanistan where they are kept safe and even offered medical treatment by the United States military. Years ago, we all heard the rumor that Osama bin Laden had received care at a US hospital in Qatar after leaving Sudan to take over what we claim was the planning of 9/11. FBI transcripts verify that bin Laden, according to testimony by former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds, was working for the US at that time and had maintained contact with his CIA handlers through the fateful summer of 2001.
The Army of Pakistan has been regularly capturing advanced weapons of Indian manufacture from militants in the border region. India maintains 17 “consular” camps inside Pakistan, near the border, adjacent to Blackwater facilities, falsely designated as CIA or USAID stations. Pakistan claims these operations train Taliban soldiers and terrorists for operations against civilian targets in Pakistan. Thousands have died in Pakistan over recent months during these attacks. Pakistan also contents these same groups are, not only fighting the Pakistan military but the Americans as well.
General Stanley McChrystal had withdrawn American forces from key areas in Afghanistan across from enemy held regions under attack by the Army of Pakistan. We are now told that this allowed those areas to become safe havens for forces formerly operating in Pakistan, who are now enjoying the freedom and hospitality of, not only Afghanistan but are being ignored by the NATO forces in the region.
The untold story is the massive complicity of Americans with their private airline, now suspected in yet another war, not Vietnam, not Central America/Iran Contra but Afghanistan, for a third time, of smuggling narcotics. The pattern is impossible to ignore.
Joined: 25 Jul 2005 Posts: 18335 Location: St. Pauls, Bristol, England
Posted: Sat Feb 13, 2010 7:31 am Post subject:
Launch of massive offensive in S. Afghanistan confirmed
Some 15,000 Afghan and ISAF forces are involved in Operation Moshtarak, which is branded as the biggest operation since 2001 in the war-torn country, according to the press release.Some 15,000 Afghan and ISAF forces are involved in Operation Moshtarak, which is branded as the biggest operation since 2001 in the war-torn country, according to the press release.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2010-02/13/c_13174594.htm
America is set to ask its NATO allies to send thousands of extra personnel to train Afghanistan's new army and police force. The U.S. says the aim is to stabilise the troubled country, but at the same time is planning to launch the biggest offensive since entering eight years ago. Defence ministers from NATO member nations, are meeting in the Turkish city of Istanbul. The U.S. wants around four thousand extra troops from them, on top of the nine thousand already pledged. America is sending 30 thousand extra combat troops of its own. But locals fear more troops will mean more Taliban attacks.
Joined: 25 Jul 2005 Posts: 18335 Location: St. Pauls, Bristol, England
Posted: Mon Feb 15, 2010 6:59 pm Post subject:
bit of a weird ending here !!
Joya condemns 'ridiculous' military strategy
By Glyn Strong - Monday, 15 February 2010
Afghanistan's "most famous woman" has voiced deep scepticism about Operation Moshtarak's aims and its impact on Afghan civilians.
"It is ridiculous," said Malalai Joya, an elected member of the Afghan parliament. "On the one hand they call on Mullah Omar to join the puppet regime. On another hand they launch this attack in which defenceless and poor people will be the prime victims. Like before, they will be killed in the Nato bombings and used as human shields by the Taliban. Helmand's people have suffered for years and thousands of innocent people have been killed so far." Her fears were confirmed when Nato reported yesterday that a rocket that missed its target had killed 12 civilians at a house in Marjah.
Dismissing Allied claims that Nato forces won't abandon Afghan civilians after the surge, she said: "They have launched such offensives a number of times in the past, but each time after clearing the area, they leave it and [the] Taliban retake it. This is just a military manoeuvre and removal of Taliban is not the prime objective."
Ms Joya believes that corruption is endemic, citing uranium deposits and opium as incentives for Nato and Afghan officials to retain a presence in Helmand. Operation Moshtarak is described as an inclusive offensive, depending for its longer-term success on involvement of Afghan forces. But Ms Joya said: "The Afghan police force is the most corrupt institution in Afghanistan. Bribery is common and if you have money, by bribing police from top to bottom you can do almost anything. In many parts of Afghanistan, people hate the police more than the Taliban. In Helmand, for instance, people are afraid of police who commit violence against people and make trouble. The majority of the police force in this province are addicted to opium and cannabis."
The suspended MP was not invited to the recent London Conference that discussed her country's future, but she is pessimistic about its outcome. Politicians regard Joya as a loose cannon: quick to criticise but slow to suggest solutions.
Her uncompromising position has, however, earned her legions of supporters. It has also gained her enemies and, after allegedly insulting her fellow parliamentarians in 2007, she was suspended from operating as an MP.
Reflecting on the London Conference, Joya said: "Ordinary Afghan people say it was like a meeting of vultures coming together to discuss how to deal with the prey which is Afghanistan." Joya sees moves towards any reconciliation with the Taliban – an exclusively male and cruelly anti-female group – as a betrayal. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/joya-condemns-ridiculous- military-strategy-1899547.html _________________ www.lawyerscommitteefor9-11inquiry.org www.rethink911.org www.patriotsquestion911.com www.actorsandartistsfor911truth.org www.mediafor911truth.org www.pilotsfor911truth.org www.mp911truth.org www.ae911truth.org www.rl911truth.org www.stj911.org www.v911t.org www.thisweek.org.uk www.abolishwar.org.uk www.elementary.org.uk www.radio4all.net/index.php/contributor/2149 http://utangente.free.fr/2003/media2003.pdf
"The maintenance of secrets acts like a psychic poison which alienates the possessor from the community" Carl Jung
https://37.220.108.147/members/www.bilderberg.org/phpBB2/
NATO chief proposes global security forum
By SLOBODAN LEKIC - Associated Press Writer
BRUSSELS NATO should serve as a global security forum where members could consult with partner nations on threats to international stability, the alliance's chief said on Thursday, adding this might require a "cultural revolution" within NATO.
Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said challenges such as international terrorism, cyber attacks, nuclear proliferation, piracy and climate change can only be tackled if NATO's 28 nations work together with its partners from around the world.
In the past, some NATO governments have criticized proposals to expand the alliance's mission, saying that could turn NATO into a "global policeman" and that members should focus on defending each other, not the rest of the world.
NATO currently has about 40 partner nations, including Australia, India, Japan, Pakistan and Russia. It has several types of partnerships, including those with European non-NATO countries, with nations of the Mediterranean basin and with Persian Gulf states.
NATO's treaty requires the alliance to militarily defend members nations, but not partner ones. Still, partner states regularly contribute to NATO operations such as those in Afghanistan, and the naval missions off Somalia and in the Mediterranean Sea,
In a video blog released Thursday, Fogh Rasmussen said setting up a new global security forum was not "a matter of choice, it is a matter of necessity."
"NATO must actively be engaged where threats arise," he said. "In today's globalized world we must realize that territorial defense begins beyond our borders and we need to act in close cooperation with other players and partners on the international scene."
Fogh Rasmussen's statement comes as the alliance is striving to redefine its mission for the 21th century. A group of experts, led by former U.S. State Secretary Madeleine Albright, is working to update NATO's old strategic concept, formulated in 1999.
The new concept should be formally adopted at the alliance's next summit in November in Lisbon, Portugal.
Drafting the document is likely to spark rifts among the allies, some of whom want NATO to stick to its core mission of defending alliance members, while others - including the United States and Britain - advocate a broader mandate. This would include missions outside NATO's traditional area of operations, such as the anti-piracy patrols off the coast of Africa.
"If we want to provide security to the nearly 1 billion people in our member states, we must adapt to the radically different circumstances," Fogh Rasmussen said. "It might require a cultural revolution in our thinking."
It was not immediately clear how member states would react, at a time when the alliance is engaged in its first out-of-theater war in Afghanistan.
NATO nations also had a major falling out over the Iraq war, with several - including France, Germany and Belgium - opposing it and blocking alliance participation.
by David Charter and Tom Coghlan, Times, 22 February 2010
Quote:
Nato was left in fear of further troop withdrawals from Afghanistan yesterday after the Dutch Prime Minister conceded that he could not prevent his forces being pulled out this year after the collapse of the Government in The Hague.
Jan Peter Balkenende lost the argument over extending the deployment at a 16-hour Cabinet session, in the first big reversal for the recently appointed Nato leader, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who had publicly requested a continued Dutch commitment.
“Our task as the lead nation [in Uruzgan province] ends in August,” Mr Balkenende said. After a three-month draw-down, the Dutch will be completely out of Afghanistan by the end of the year.
There are concerns that other countries where public opinion is turning against the Afghan campaign could follow, notably Canada, which has had the biggest proportional casualty rate and is committed to withdrawing its 2,800 troops by the end of next year.
Another concern is the continued presence of 1,000 Australian troops. The Canberra Government has repeatedly refused to take over the lead role in Uruzgan if Holland leaves, demanding that a big Nato power provide the main share of troop numbers.
Joined: 13 Sep 2006 Posts: 2568 Location: One breath from Glory
Posted: Mon Feb 22, 2010 11:03 pm Post subject:
Yes with any luck, but what is going to be left behind. Anyone gonna fill the power vaccuum? _________________ JO911B.
"for we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities, against powers, against rulers of the darkness of this world, against wicked spirits in high places " Eph.6 v 12
Joined: 25 Jul 2005 Posts: 18335 Location: St. Pauls, Bristol, England
Posted: Mon Apr 26, 2010 12:39 am Post subject:
Are these British troops or not?
Looks like a bad case of 'management creep'.
Nato snubs Gordon Brown over Helmand withdrawal plans
Nato foreign ministers have snubbed Gordon Brown's plans for a staged withdrawal from the districts of Helmand by agreeing to handover reponsibility to local officials on a province by province basis.
British troops could be the last to leave Afghanistan after it emerged that a new "road map" for handing over control would not include the southern provinces.
Sources told The Daily Telegraph that commanders were looking at creating a "critical mass" of provinces that would be able to withstand a surge of Taliban activity. Those are likely to be in the north of the country rather than Helmand in the south, where British forces are concentrated.....
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/afghanistan/7632578/Nat o-snubs-Gordon-Brown-over-Helmand-withdrawal-plans.html
Who – knowing that we will soon leave Afghanistan – now dares to send another soldier to die there? How many more homes will fill with grief while our inadequate leaders refuse to admit that it is time to go?
For it is quite clear that we, like the Soviet army before us, will soon be on our way out of this futile battlefield. The only remaining question is how soon.
Meanwhile the Oval Office and the Downing Street Cabinet Room fill up with the blood of the dead, all better men and women by far than those who sent them to die. I do not know how the occupants of these chambers can bear to be there.
Empty rhetoric: David Cameron in Afghanistan last week
Joined: 13 Oct 2005 Posts: 44 Location: Brisbane Australia
Posted: Mon Jun 14, 2010 12:01 am Post subject:
It is important not to lose sight of the fact that the original invasion of afghanistan was justified on the grounds that the taliban government harboured the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks. That was nonsnes then and it is nonsense now. Even if it were true however, the attack and occupation would not be justified in international law (see O'Sullivan 2001 New Law Journal 1178; Arend & Beck International Law and the Use of Force 2009).
Obama is still invoking 9/11 as the justification and his lickspittle allies such as Britain and Australia are tagging along with that massive deception. Others, such as the Dutch have more sense and are getting out while they can do so with dignity.
It is not a question of whether the war is "winnable", or whether the troops are properly equipped. They have no right being there at all. Are Cameron and Clegg going to be war ciminals too like their predecessors Blair and Brown?
This war is an ongoing illustration of why the truth about 9/11 should be told and being diverted by Daily Mail type distractions is not helpful.
Joined: 25 Jul 2005 Posts: 18335 Location: St. Pauls, Bristol, England
Posted: Wed Sep 01, 2010 11:27 pm Post subject:
Interview with CIA Veteran Michael Scheuer
'Only the Taliban Are Not Corrupt'
The CIA is alleged to have been paying an aide to Afghan President Hamid Karzai for information. Former CIA officer Michael Scheuer spoke to SPIEGEL about why fighting corruption in Afghanistan is all but impossible.
SPIEGEL: The CIA is alleged to have paid Mohammed Zia Salehi, an aide to Afghan President Hamid Karzai, for information. Has the CIA damaged the Americans' credibility?
Michael Scheuer: That's absolutely good recruitment. I think you recruit whoever gives you access to a target. It might be someone who is a terrorist or it might be someone who's a corrupt official. I think any other intelligence agency would be delighted to have someone to give them information about what Karzai is thinking because he's such a dishonest man.
SPIEGEL: The US now has to face accusations that it is financing the very corruption it is promising to fight.
Scheuer: Not really. President Obama knew about this. His intelligence advisors knew about this. If he's smart I'm sure the president would want to have somebody close to Karzai to know what's going on. The US government and other governments are lying when they say that they can clean up corruption and win the war.
SPIEGEL: Is Washington being energetic enough in trying to fight corruption?
Scheuer: We're really not in a position to push these people. Who's going to replace them? There isn't anyone less corrupt. Probably the only incorrupt people in Afghanistan are the Taliban. If you want no corruption, give the government back to the Taliban.
SPIEGEL: Salehi, a high-ranking member of Afghanistan's National Security Council, has allegedly been on the CIA payroll for years. Do you think he will be put on trial?
Scheuer: I would think that there's not going to be a trial. Salehi knows so much about what goes on in that government and what's been stolen and who's doing the stealing, that if he got on a witness seat, it might as well be Karzai himself.
The war in Afghanistan today enters its 10th year, with little sign of an end. Extra American troops may now be in place, but public support for the campaign is slipping rapidly, with about two-thousand NATO troops killed in the conflict. It's a critical time for the U.S.-led campaign, as it struggles to turn around the fight against the Taliban, ahead of the expected withdrawal of international forces next year. Afghan officials continue to back the coalition's efforts, but even they admit that after all this time there's still no tangible result. And, as RT's Paula Slier reports, the online antics of American soldiers are hardly helping matters.
_________________ 'Come and see the violence inherent in the system.
Help, help, I'm being repressed!'
“The more you tighten your grip, the more Star Systems will slip through your fingers.”
The Taliban have destroyed in the last two weeks hundreds of supply fuel trucks both in Pakistan and Afghanistan proper.
This is a true calamity for the US occupation. Unable to secure their supplies over land, their costs in doing it by air will catastrophically increase.
The silence of the mass media on this issue is truly amazing.
But then again this was the same media that sold fake WMD's as a reason to go into Iraq and consider their financial system as having 'recovered' when the toxic debts are about to blow up around them, just like the NATO supply trucks...
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